The dead have the most to live for
by Tenpa-Neko
Summary: -"It almost made her miss the days when Naruto was infatuated with her, and not with Sasuke." Sakura's an agent of unrequited love, on a mission to fix a relationship she wanted to doom more than save; but all is lost when she turns to stone. NaruSasu.


_Rating : T for language._

_Do not own, am not making money._

_I seem to have garnered an obsession with Sakura. I am sick and tired of Sakura-bashers, because honestly, everyone knows what unrequited love feels like. And fuck, it hurts. She deserves more mentions than people give her. _

_This is established relationship NaruSasu, told from Sakura's 3rd POV. _

_I hope I can change your mind about Sakura._

_She isn't as bad as she seems._

_She's just lonely._

_This is dedicated to all the lonely people in the world.  
_

_

* * *

  
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The dead have the most to live for, mutes the most to say.

* * *

Sakura measured her words against the sky and found them mediocre.

Maybe all the time she spent sitting on the side lines of her teammates fights was getting to her. Peeking through interlaced fingers, she'd watch them spar, watch them mix hate and love as easily as if they were bartenders with all the world's emotions on tap, and she'd wonder what it would be like if she could someday make the thoughts inside her tangible.

She would never admit to anyone the depth to which her feelings ran. When she was alone in the middle of the night, listening to the whispers of wind beating at her window and her own tumultuous thoughts beating at her mind, she would mouth into the silence the words she wished she could have the strength to say.

Days passed with abandon, ignoring Sakura's pleas for time to slow. She spent the hours of her day so transfixed in silent observation of the people around her she stopped being able to raise her eyes from people's mouths when they talked. She'd watch their lips moving, feel the rush of air that puffed out with every gleaming word, and try to quell the envy that would rise unbidden from her heart.

She observed with silent gratification the progress of looks between her fellow teammates. She watched them shift from uncertainty to betrayal to hurt, and she would shrink back into the shadows and pretend that she was just another door, just another window. She hoped that someday someone walking past would stop and look straight through her so they could see the sky.

She never admitted to anyone this secret desire to be a window.

Each hour that went by seemed to pick up minutes, until Sakura's hours were eighty minutes long, then ninety, and it was all she could do to pretend everything was normal. Pretend her hours were not stealing precious minutes from her already limited lifespan.

In this effort to appear normal, she counted her words as obsessively as someone with fifty pounds to lose counting every calorie to enter their mouth. Each word she spoke seemed like a bird being released from a cage, and she wondered where they would go. If they would just disappear. Fall into a gutter somewhere, and became a part of the swirling city-life. Forsaken words of love and loss are what power the overwhelming neon signs in great cities, not mere electricity, she realized with no small amount of surprise.

So with every day, Sakura spoke less. She'd nod her greetings and whisper her goodbyes until she became the ghost at the back of the room, watching but never partaking. She watched new relationships bloom beneath her eyes and watched old ones became torn apart, and she knew that if she could just say those few words, everything would be fine again.

One dazzling morning, Sakura woke up and found she couldn't move her lips. They were locked in place on her face, two frozen pink worms of silence. She left her house, heart racing and palms sweating, terrified to the core at the thought that she would never manage to get those precious words out.

Her teachers nodded ambiguous hellos, Sasuke grunted a brief greeting and Naruto sent an absent wave, both of their attentions on someone else, and she wondered if they realized how she felt like a marionette whose strings had been callously cut.

The sun was falling, and Sakura had secured a hollow for herself in a clump of brambles near the training ground, one trembling hand pressed to her lips, with even the tears welling in her eyes turning to jagged ice.

Mere feet away, the two people closest to her in all the world, back when she was a normal girl and had thought only in terms of the world instead of infinity, fought each other with reckless abandon, fists flying and hearts hurting so much they couldn't see straight because they were blinded by their own misconceptions. The sky could have fallen and they would have picked up the sparkling shards and used them as weapons to slash a smile on the other's face.

She could feel cold searing her body into a surreal counterpart of who she used to be. The parts of her body were freezing in place, locked in an eternal fight with evanescence. Her arms could not tremble, her legs could not shake, and her hand could not move from where it was pressed to those lips that could fix everything that was wrong if only she could move them.

She watched with burning eyes how Sasuke's arms trembled with every blow he rained upon his blonde counterpart, how Naruto's face was determined to the point of being so tense his grin might fall off and shatter into a million dazzling crystals. She felt her own heart break and sew itself together a thousand times over as she realized that in her quest to be protector of words, she had abandoned the most important ones of all.

Night fell, and soon the only remainder of the two were the spatters of blood on the trodden grass. The stars rained a shower of regret on her pink head as she sat with one pale hand still frozen to traitorous lips.

* * *

It had started a week earlier.

Laughter tinkled through the winter air like a cascade of diamonds tumbling down an echoing cliff face as Sakura tried to summon a smile on her dejected friend's face.

"I'm sure it will turn out all right, Naruto."

He sighed angrily, tensing his arms around the legs folded in front of him.

"Sasuke thinks I cheated on him. How can this turn out all right?"

Sakura's smile could have broken the sun in two.

"He's sensible. He'll come around."

Naruto bit his lip.

"We should never have gone to that stupid dance."

Sakura nodded wisely, flipping shimmering hair over her shoulder.

"Look, everyone was there! Everyone saw that someone pushed that kid into you, you weren't _actually_ kissing him."

Naruto grunted absently.

"Typical for Sasuke to come in during it and get the wrong fucking idea."

Sakura really couldn't contain the grin.

"I keep telling you. It will be fine."

Naruto shrugged, gaze focused on the clouds floating above. Silence reigned supreme for some precious moments as Sakura's heart trembled with the fragile hope that she had never before dared to possess.

Naruto looked at her suddenly, eyes gleaming.

"Sakura!"

She blinked.

"What?"

Naruto was speaking so fast he was almost slurring his words. "You were there! And, Sasuke definitely trusts what you say, fuck knows why-", he batted away the swat she aimed his way, "so you can explain it to him!"

Sakura froze.

"Are you joking?"

Naruto's eyes were shining with intense hope that could only originate from the depths of the universe itself. "No!" He looked away, posture loosening. "Please do it." His voice was soft. "I can't take this."

Her smile broke and fell to the earth below.

His voice was shaking. "Please, Sakura. It would mean so much to me. I know how awkward it'll seem, but," He exhaled loudly, "I really… can't take this for a day longer."

She swallowed.

"Besides, you owe me for saving your ass the other day!"

The walls on her little world seemed to be closing in, and she couldn't exactly place why. It almost made her miss the days when Naruto was infatuated with her, and not with Sasuke.

Naruto's smile was falling and his words slowing as no sound came from his teammate. He pulled the guilt card, forcing out a pitiful whine. "Sakura, I thought we were frien-"

"Of course I will."

Her lips tingled.

"What are friends for, right?"

"Right!" Naruto nodded, eyes regaining the shine that Sakura could not bear to see leave. He jumped to his feet, energy thrumming through him now. "I have to go, or I'll be late to class." He started jogging in the opposite direction from where she kneeled, unmoving, on the waving grass, before he did an abrupt turn.

"Oh, and Sakura?"

She made an absent noise.

"Tell him…" Naruto's smile, she thought, was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

"Tell him I love him."

Sakura almost wished she could be as beautiful as Naruto, almost wished her smile could be as pure and her heart as loving as his.

Naruto left, not waiting for a reply, but Sakura seemed to be searching for one in that dazzling expanse of blue hanging ominously above her head.

She looked up at the bright sky and wondered at the intensity behind all which Naruto did, and the ardent passion he had compressed within his body. She bit her tingling lips and played over their conversation in her head, heart beating a samba out beneath her skin.

Her eyes followed the creases in the clouds and the folds of light dancing through the sky. She stretched out one trembling hand because she wanted more than anything to be able to grab a cloud and hold on tight until they melded into one glorious example of the thousands of possibilities normal people overlook.

The next day, Sakura nodded her hellos.

* * *

_I haven't posted anything for a while.  
_

_Because, I think I've lost hope._

_So, everything I write is desperate and just oozes of loneliness._

_And people want happy endings, right?_

_I wish I could give you one._

_I wish I could give me one._

_All readers appreciated, flamers accepted, reviewers hugged viscously, and constructive critizers given a hypothetical life-time supply of feel-good slash._

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_(I'm begging someone, give me inspiration.)  
_


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